Chapter 2: Encounter With A Bad Egg
It was a fairly large group, consisting of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Tangle, Whisper, and Lanolin. They were all heading to Angel Island, in hopes of tracking Dr Eggman down, and hopefully stopping his plans early, whatever those plans may be. All of them were currently on the Tornado except for Sonic, because, well Sonic can go really fast so he could just run his way there and besides, the Tornado was overcrowded enough as is.
"Man isn't the breeze great Whisper?" Tangle manages to speak over the wind, the both of them currently sitting next to each other on the right wing of the plane.
"It's nice," Whisper says while looking down at the luscious forests that seemed to span for miles, her colourful wisps surrounding her like a rainbow. Tangle looked out in the same direction, and for a moment, stopped and thought to herself. Her and Whisper had been good friends for a while now, and seeing how much they've grown together, these conflicting feelings that she was having, she sometimes wished she could have more of her. Despite this, the lemur had still not taken action yet, her fears of ruining this friendship being too much to bear, was she ever going to take action? You know what, I need to do something, just something small to start with, see how she reacts Tangle thought to herself determined.
Tangle then put her hand nervously around Whisper's shoulder before replying, "You're nicer…" Was that all I could think of? Tangle began to panic in her mind. Whisper didn't seem to have much of a reaction to what Tangle said other than a slight smile, although she didn't seem to mind the lemur's hand on her shoulder, as she made no attempt to move. Tangle was still nervous but ultimately felt some relief after realising she hadn't made things weird. On the other wing of the plane sat Amy and Lanolin, neither knowing the other very well up to this point.
"Amy, is it alright if I ask you something?" Lanolin asks uncertainly.
"Of course, anything you want to ask, I'll answer it," Amy reassures her.
"Well... Whisper and Tangle want me to lead the Diamond Cutters again, but after last time, and the fact I'm not as experienced as the rest of you, I don't know if I have what it takes. I've seen how you lead and well, I was hoping you could give me some advice on the matter,"
Amy puts her hand gently on Lanolin's leg, "You know, I believe you have what it takes, I've seen your progress after all. Now, I find when it comes to being a good leader, having empathy and compassion with your teammates are the most important traits a leader can have. Without it, it creates unnecessary conflict between people who should be working together." Lanolin listened intently to what Amy was saying, she wanted to learn and improve, she didn't want to mess anything up, she COULDN'T afford to mess anything up.
Sonic meanwhile was running on top of the water heading directly for Angel Island, which had fallen from the sky. Fortunately, the waves were calm on this particular day, so it was easy for him to stay on top of the water. As expected, he was the first to arrive on Angel Island, his goal being to find where Dr Eggman went, then letting Tails and the others know where to go so they can all fight the doctor together. Using his wrist-comm, he was able to talk to Tails on the Tornado.
"Alright Tails, I've just arrived at Angel Island. From the footage, you said the Egg Fleet was heading west from here right?"
"Yes, head that way now, the Egg Fleet is going to be hard to miss," Tails urges. Lanolin, who was listening up to this point, interjected into the conversation.
"Sonic, I want to make a request for you. Can you check out Eggman Base Xi? It's one of the closest bases in that directi..."
"Hey everyone, is it just me or is that the Egg Fleet in the distance there," Knuckles suddenly speaks, interrupting Lanolin while pointing one of his fists out the left side of the plane.
"You weren't kidding Tails when you said it would be hard to miss him," Amy smiles to him.
"Alright, Sonic, change of plans, we've just discovered the Egg Fleet nearby Mystic Ruins so that shouldn't be too far for you to run," Tails informs.
"Don't worry buddy, nowhere is too far me for to run," Sonic says confidently before dashing his way over to Mystic Ruins. Tails turned his plane left towards the Egg Fleet while the rest of the them were getting prepared for battle. It was going to be difficult to get Sonic up to the Egg Fleet but they decided that they would worry about that later.
"Make sure to keep an eye out, Eggman will probably have some sort of security," Amy advised everyone, now holding her Piko Piko Hammer in her hands. Suddenly, Whisper was getting a call through her mask. The call was coming from Jewel back at the Restoration HQ.
"Whisper, I heard you're on a mission, you know what I told you earlier right?," Jewel reminds her.
"Mhm, we're just about to fight on the Egg Fleet, would you like me to warn them now?"
Jewel contemplates about this for a moment before speaking, "Hmm, I don't think so, I can't see any way they could have gotten on the Egg Fleet right?"
"Yeah, no chance, but I don't understand why you would want to hide this Jewel, I don't like hiding this from Tangle, or anyone else for that matter…" Whisper says quietly, trying to avoid giving too much attention to herself.
"Whisper, are you talking to Jewel?" Tangle asks, which startles Whisper resulting in her ending the call early. Inside the Egg Fleet, Dr Eggman was boasting about his new plan with the Master Emerald before being notified by Cubot and Orbot of the Tornado's presence.
"Already!? How did that fox find me so quickly!?" Eggman yelled before stopping himself, "Ugh I shouldn't have yelled, I'm still sick."
"Father, don't yell at Cubot and Orbot, let me take care of them for you," Sage speaks, trying to comfort the doctor.
"Thank you Sage, this is all some unfortunate timing," Eggman admits.
Suddenly, as Tails was approaching ever closer to the Egg Fleet, missiles were aimed and fired at the Tornado. Tails was able to dodge them just barely, weaving in all sorts of directions to do so, but with everyone on board, it inevitably resulted with other downsides. Lanolin had almost slipped and fallen off the plane but was fortunately saved by Tangle's tail.
"Woah, you're getting good," Lanolin thanked Tangle before the sheep went back to her stern self, "Go to the biggest ship Tails, that's most likely where Eggman will be. We need to confront the monster directly." While this was happening, Sonic had found where the action was taking place, and while he was could run on water, he couldn't exactly run on the air. It was clear he was going to need some help.
"Alright Tails, I'm here on the ground and I can see you, can you send someone to get me?"
"I'm pretty preoccupied at the moment Sonic, I'll get back to you as soon as I can," Tails replied, now above the Egg Fleet still dodging missiles.
"I can use my Variable Wispon to hover down to him," Whisper suggested.
"Go for it Whisper, the sooner we can get Sonic here, the better," Tangle encourages her.
This was going to be quite the dangerous endeavour. Hopefully the missiles will only be focused on Tails and the Tornado because this could get ugly. Regardless, the risks were worth it and Whisper, using Green, began to hover down as fast as possible. She didn't know where exactly Sonic was, but hopefully he'll see her and know what's up. Indeed, Sonic was quickly able to see Whisper hovering down without any issues, and soon enough, him and Whisper were able to connect to each other on a small grass field.
"I was wondering when someone would show up, hopefully I won't be too heavy for you Whisper."
"I'm stronger than I look Sonic."
While Whisper and Sonic were hovering back up to the Egg Fleet, the rest of them had managed to land on the biggest ship of the Egg Fleet, which is where they suspected Dr Eggman would be. There were many robots, which was typical of the doctor, but with so many powerful anthros and the element of surprise, the robots were no match so far, even if the high winds added a slight challenge to the fight.
"You keep beating up these robots, I'm going to go find Eggman myself," Knuckles said determined to get the Master Emerald back in his hands (knuckles) as soon as possible.
"Wait Knuckles, we should work as a team here," Amy replies, concerned with Knuckles' recklessness.
"There's no need to look for me, I'm right here!" Dr Eggman announces, suddenly appearing above them in his Egg Mobile, "Unfortunately for you lot, my new plan has already begun and I think you will all look forward to it."
"Not if I have anything to say about it egghead!" Sonic yells while being carried by Whisper hovering in the sky, before landing on the airship in a dramatic pose.
"Typical," Eggman says quietly to himself.
"It's best you don't disturb my father today, he is quite ill at the moment," Sage replies to Sonic, trying to give Eggman some support.
"Huh, did the doctor eat some bad eggs or something?" Sonic jokes around.
"No you imbecile, I was poisoned by someone, and when I find who they are, let's just say they're going to have a bad time," Eggman seethes.
"Poisoned? Well I don't think that was any of us," Tails ponders, this isn't something he's heard of before. Perhaps this was just a part of another Eggman ruse.
"Yeah I know it wasn't any of you, it's not your style, you all like the grand battles just like I do," Eggman laughs to them all.
"Enough talking, where is my Emerald?" Knuckles demanded. Eggman simply laughed at Knuckles' demand, almost mockingly. Even though the doctor was clearly outnumbered, he had a trick up his sleeve, a surprise of his own. All of a sudden, using the wind to cover up any noise he might have made, Metal Sonic had managed to sneak behind Tails, picked him up, and slammed him against the floor before anyone had time to react. Once Sonic realised what happened, rage began to fuel inside of him, "Oh no, no one does that to my best buddy and gets away with it."
Instead of confronting Sonic though, Metal Sonic then sped up to the Tornado, which was currently parked on the airship, and started destroying it. Now, it was clear Eggman's talking was just a diversion. If the Tornado couldn't function, they were all pretty much stuck up there in the sky.
"Whisper, Tangle, help Sonic out, I want to make sure Dr Eggman doesn't get up to anything else," Lanolin ordered.
"Are you sure about this Lanolin? You know how dangerous Eggman can be," Amy said fearing for the sheep's safety.
"Stay behind me then," Lanolin replied, contemplating whether to go on the attack using her golden bell. While this was going on, Metal Sonic, had managed to do some damage to the Tornado, but was now no match for Sonic, Knuckles, Tangle, and Whisper who surrounded him. The four of them worked together to take down Metal Sonic as quickly and effectively as possible, using a combination of speed, might, and encirclement. Soon enough, Metal Sonic, realising his situation, had no choice but to retreat. Sonic could have gone after him, but he felt in his heart it was more important to check and see if Tails was okay.
"Are you alright Tails?"
Tails, who was still laying on the ground answered Sonic's question weakly, "Yeah, I'm alright, just wasn't expecting it was all. I need to check if the plane still works." Tangle then lifted Tails up gently using her tail, helping him along so he could check out the damages. Fortunately, Tails discovered that the damages were only minor, with the exterior taking most of the damage. Still, some fixes needed to be done to ensure maximum safety.
Dr Eggman was going for a personal approach with his attack, straight up using his energy gun and firing it repeatedly at Amy and Lanolin. Amy was able to deflect one of the shots back towards him using her Piko Piko Hammer while Lanolin used her golden bell to create sound waves in hopes of disorientating the doctor.
"This is getting ridiculous. Sage, defend the Master Emerald now, we can't let them get it." Eggman said furiously, the sickness and the disorientation messing him up surprisingly well. Still in the Egg Mobile, Eggman made a tactical retreat away from the Master Emerald's hidden location.
"Stay back Amy, I'm doing it again!" Lanolin yelled, firing another wave of concentrated sound waves towards the doctor. All of a sudden though, an explosion could be heard. Something had blown up near the doctor, the explosion causing critical damage the airship, and barely missing Eggman himself.
"The Egg Fleet too!? HOW!?" Eggman screamed in a high-pitched voice.
"Where did that come from?" Amy said disconcertingly to Lanolin, the both of them just barely dodging the metal fragments coming from the explosion, the wind still blowing strongly towards them.
"I don't know Amy, but this ship isn't going to be flying much longer," Lanolin replied.
"What was that I just heard?" Tangle said, rushing to the two of them. Whisper, who quickly caught up to them, realised that one of the bomb's that Jewel was talking about had managed to be placed on the Egg Fleet after all.
"We need to get out of here now, I know about this, and there could be more of those bombs on this ship," Whisper ordered, not wanting to take any more risks.
"Bombs?" Lanolin responded, glaring the wolf down slightly.
"If that's the case Whisper, we need to leave now." Amy said to her before commanding to everyone else, "Everyone, we need to leave now, head straight for the Tornado!"
As they all got back on the Tornado, even more crowded than before now that Sonic was with them, the group made the collective decision to head to the ground as quickly as possible to avoid any risks with the condition of the plane, and to talk about what had just happened. They all gathered up in the grass field where Sonic and Whisper were earlier, the sun starting to set behind the mountains. After a moment, Whisper spoke to the group,"I'm sorry I didn't warn you all about the bombs earlier. It was Jewel's request, neither of us suspected anyone could sneak onto the Egg Fleet like that," she said apologetically, breaking Jewel's order but no longer caring about doing so. Tangle felt bad for Whisper, not understanding why the wolf had kept this to herself for so long, and also why her best friend Jewel didn't tell her about these bombs either. There must have been a good reason, but what was that reason?
"Whisper, it's okay… at least we're all safe now," Tangle said cuddling Whisper with her tail, causing her to lightly chuckle to herself.
"Ahhh I was so close to getting him!" Lanolin yelled, more to herself than anyone else.
Sonic put his hand on Lanolin's shoulder, trying to comfort the sheep, "It's okay Lanolin, there's always next time. You were very brave today I must admit."
"Huh… you're right, there's always next time," Lanolin replied, finding some encouragement back in herself.
"What's strange is that none of us know who's going after Eggman, not even him," Tails thought aloud, "The tactics being used are very underhanded and sneaky though, so it's going to be hard to find out who is responsible for this." In the distance, they all could see the largest airship in the Egg Fleet falling to the ground.
"Maybe the Chaotix might know something about this, and if they don't, they could get some knowledge for us using their detective skills," Knuckles suggested.
"Perhaps, it's a shame we couldn't get the Master Emerald back to you though," Amy said.
"We'll get it back to you soon, one way or another Knuckles," Sonic smiled at him. Knuckles smiled back at the hedgehog.
Back on the Egg Fleet, Eggman could be seen laying down in one of the backup airships, hurt by the battle but still alive. Sage was taking care of him the best she could.
"At least we still have the Master Emerald right?" Sage said, trying to make her father feel just a little bit better.
"You're right Sage, things could have gone worse, the plan is still coming together," Eggman looked up to her softly, "Thanks for helping me, it's been a rough day."
"Anything for you father."